At night he has a new feast prepared for his intellects; he always runs to a disputing society, or a speaking club, where he half hears what, if he had heard the whole, he would but half understand; goes home pleased with the consciousness of a day well spent, lies down full of ideas, and rises in the morning empty as before.

Amendments:

Idler, No. 48.

AMENDMENTS are seldom made without some token of

Wit and Wisdom of

Samuel

Johnson.

a rent.

Boswell's Life of Johnson, iv. 38.

Amusements :

I AM a great friend to publick amusements; for they keep people from vice.

Ancestors:

Ib. ii. 169.

REASON, indeed, will soon inform us, that our estimation of birth is arbitrary and capricious, and that dead ancestors can have no influence but upon imagination: let it then be examined, whether one dream may not operate in the place of another; whether he that owes nothing to forefathers, may not receive equal pleasure from the consciousness of owing all to himself; whether he may not, with a little meditation, find it more honourable to found than to continue a family, and to gain dignity than transmit it; whether if he receives no dignity from the virtues of his family, he does not likewise escape the danger of being disgraced by their crimes; and whether he that brings a new name into the world, has not the convenience of

playing

Wit and Wisdom

playing the game of life without a stake, and opportunity

of winning much though he has nothing to lose.

of Samuel Johnson.

Anecdotes:

Adventurer, No. 111.

'DR. JOHNSON had last night looked into Lord Hailes's Remarks on the History of Scotland. Dr. Robertson and I said, it was a pity Lord Hailes did not write greater things. His lordship had not then published his Annals of Scotland. JOHNSON. "I remember I was once on a visit at the house of a lady for whom I had a high respect. There was a good deal of company in the room. When they were gone, I said to this lady, 'What foolish talking have we had!' 'Yes, (said she,) but while they talked, you said nothing.' I was struck with the reproof. How much better is the man who does anything that is innocent, than he who does nothing. Besides, I love anecdotes. I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. If a man is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in getting them, and get but few, in comparison of what we might get." Boswell's Life of Johnson, v. 38.

Antipathies:

THERE is one species of terror which those who are unwilling to suffer the reproach of cowardice have wisely dignified with the name of antipathy. A man who talks with intrepidity of the monsters of the wilderness while they are out of sight will readily confess his antipathy to a mole, a weasel, or a frog. He has indeed no dread of harm from an insect or a worm, but his antipathy turns

him

him pale whenever they approach him. He believes that a boat will transport him with as much safety as his neighbours, but he cannot conquer his antipathy to the water. Thus he goes on without any reproach from his own reflections, and every day multiplies antipathies, till he becomes contemptible to others, and burdensome to himself. It is indeed certain, that impressions of dread may sometimes be unluckily made by objects not in themselves justly formidable; but when fear is discovered to be groundless, it is to be eradicated like other false opinions, and antipathies are generally superable by a single effort He that has been taught to shudder at a mouse, if he can persuade himself to risk one encounter, will find his own superiority, and exchange his terrors for the pride of conquest.

Antiquaries:

A MERE antiquarian is a rugged being.

Rambler, No. 126.

Boswell's Life of Johnson, iii. 278.

Anxious Cleanliness:

THERE is a kind of anxious cleanliness which I have always noted as the characteristic of a slattern; it is the superfluous scrupulosity of guilt, dreading discovery, and shunning suspicion: it is the violence of an effort against habit, which, being impelled by external motives, cannot stop at the middle point. Rambler, No. 115.

Appetite :

A MAN who rides out for an appetite

the dignity of human nature.

consults but little

Works (ed. 1787) xi. 204.

Wit and Wisdom

of

Samuel

Johnson.

Arguments

Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson.

Arguments and Understanding:

JOHNSON having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman; his opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling manner, happened to say, 'I don't understand you, Sir:' upon which Johnson observed, 'Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.' Boswell's Life of Johnson, iv. 313.

Army:

I DOUBT not but I shall hear on this occasion of the service of our troops in the suppression of riots; we shall be told by the next pompous orator who shall rise up in defence of the army that they have often dispersed the smugglers; that the colliers have been driven down by the terror of their appearance to their subterraneous fortifications; that the weavers in the midst of that rage which hunger and oppression excited fled at their approach; that they have at our markets bravely regulated the price of butter, and sometimes in the utmost exertion of heroic fury broken those eggs which they were not suffered to purchase on their own terms. Debates, x. 52.

IT is not without compassion, compassion very far extended, that I consider the unhappy striplings doomed to a camp from whom the sun has hitherto been screened and the wind excluded, who have been taught by many tender lectures the unwholesomeness of the evening mists and the morning dews, who have been wrapt in furs in winter and cooled with fans in summer, who have lived without any

fatigue

Assertors of Truth.

fatigue but that of dress, or any care but that of their complexion. Who can forbear some degree of sympathy when he sees animals like these taking their last farewell of the maid that has fed them with sweetmeats and defended them from insects; when he sees them dressed up in the habiliments of soldiers, loaded with a sword and invested with a command, not to mount the guard at the palace, nor to display their lace at a review; not to protect ladies at the door of an assembly-room nor to show their intrepidity at a country fair, but to enter into a kind of fellowship with the rugged sailor, to hear the tumult of a storm, to sustain the change of climate, and to be set on shore in an enemy's dominions?

Debates, x. 63.

Assertors of Uncontroverted Truth:

TOM STEADY was a vehement assertor of uncontroverted truth; and by keeping himself out of the reach of contradiction, had acquired all the confidence which the consciousness of irresistible abilities could have given. I was once mentioning a man of eminence, and, after having recounted his virtues, endeavoured to represent him fully, by mentioning his faults. Sir, said Mr. Steady, that he has faults I can easily believe, for who is without them? No man, Sir, is now alive, among the innumerable multitudes that swarm upon the earth, however wise, or however good, who has not, in some degree, his failings and his faults. If there be any man faultless, bring him forth into public view, shew him openly, and let him be known; but I will venture to affirm, and, till the contrary be plainly shewn, shall always maintain, that no such man is to be found. Tell not me, Sir, of impeccability and perfection; such talk is for those that are strangers in the

world:

I I

Wit and Wisdom of

Samuel Johnson.